Washington State University Libraries Manuscripts, Archives, and Special Collections

Summary Information

Repository

Washington State University Libraries, Manuscripts, Archives and Special Collections

Creator

Suksdorf, Wilhelm, 1850-1932.

Title

Wilhelm Nikolaus Suksdorf Papers

ID

Cage 315

Date [inclusive]

1867-1935

Extent

7.5 Linear feet of shelf space, 14 Boxes, 5900 Items

Language

Collection materials are in German

Abstract

The papers of Pacific Northwest botanical collector, Wilhelm Nikolaus Suksdorf. These consist of correspondence, enclosures, bills and receipts, drafts and copies of writings, herbarium catalogs, field notes, maps, diaries, published works and other papers, and a few personal papers.

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Biography/History

The long and complex, if outwardly simple, life of Wilhelm Suksdorf began in rural Germany, near Kiel, in 1850. At the age of eight he emigrated to northeastern Iowa with his family. He lived there until 1874. In 1876 he was enrolled in a science/agriculture course at the University of California. Before graduating, however, he left school to join his father and several brothers at White Salmon, Washington, where he entered into their various farming and town promotion activities.

He started making botanical observations of an informal sort in Iowa, continued in California and began serious reconnaissance and collecting of Washington plants during the summer vacation of 1875. As much of the Washington vegetation could not be identified with existing manuals, in 1878 Suksdorf began corresponding with Asa Gray at Harvard University, in an effort to have his collection identified and named. Encouraged by Gray, who named a genus of plants for him, and by a visiting expedition of botanists in 1880, Suksdorf decided to make a serious distribution of Washington plants. These he offered for sale in 1882, the first of his thirteen fascicles of Washington plants.

In 1886, Gray asked Suksdorf to join him at Harvard as an assistant, apparently intending that the position would become permanent. A combination of complex circumstances, along with various physical and mental health problems which plagued him throughout his life, led Suksdorf to abandon Harvard in 1888. After a time of inactivity, he returned to collecting Washington plants and to a regular pattern of publication of his findings. Difficulties arose, however, because of his limitations with English and a strong personal desire to write in German. Consequently, many of his articles appeared in German and Austrian journals, or in obscure American journals which would carry articles written in German. This position, along with his strong adherence to the "International Rule" school of thought, led him into many minor disputes with botanists for the rest of his life. In the 1920s, he resolved some of these difficulties by founding a personal journal, Werdenda, which gave him an outlet for his views.

Suksdorf continued to live at Bingen, Washington, a town he and his brothers founded, for the rest his life and his botanical labors accordingly tended to reflect the vegetation of adjacent Klickitat County. This area contained vegetation representative of both humid, wooded Western Washington and arid, open Eastern Washington along with a major alpine area, Mt. Adams, which Suksdorf, following Indian practice, called Mt. Paddo. Thus he was exposed to much of the state’s varied flora without traveling great distances. He did, nevertheless, collect plants in the Spokane area in parts of Oregon and Idaho near to Washington, at one location in Montana and while on a major trip to California in 1913. In the 1920s he spent two winters at Washington State University, as a special fellow of the herbarium.

Suksdorf’s outlook on botany had been colored by his early exposure to the ideas of Asa Gray and the basic ideas of the Candollean school, as well as by his own personal experiences and emotions relative to the out-of-doors and to plants. Occupationally, philosophically, scientifically and emotionally he was a "naturalist," reflecting every sense of the meaning of the term. This led him to some practices which caused many to regard him as an eccentric: his reclusiveness, his preferences for field botany over laboratory study, and his tendency to be a splitter of species. For decades he fought against those botanical ideas which came from abstract study in herbaria and libraries and insisted that plants must be seen in the field for an understanding. Although this fight with academic botanists was generally a losing battle, Suksdorf continued to hope for a return of naturalism even to the later years of his life. He expressed this idea in 1928 when he wrote, "A collector sees the plants in the field and mostly many of each kind he collects, but his notes or remarks are seldom considered of importance. That was so, at least in the past. But I knew one botanist who was different; that was Dr. Gray. To him the collector was a helper, not merely a collector." (16 June 1928, Harold St. John Papers).

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Scope and Content

The papers contain Wilhelm Nikolaus Suksdorf’s correspondence, along with many enclosures; his diaries; drafts or copies of many of his writings; his catalog of his herbarium; and many of his field notes, along with maps and explanations of place names. Most materials relate to Suksdorf’s plant collecting, subsequent classification and distribution of specimens, and his professional writing, though some personal and family papers are included. Materials from the papers of Fermen Pickett, Alice Eastwood, and Carleton Ball are interfiled within the correspondence. Other correspondents include: R. Kent Beattie, Alice Eastwood, Asa Gray, Louis Henderson, Thomas Howell, Charles Piper, and Harold St. John. Both personal and scientific correspondence is included. Approximately one-fourth of the material is in German.

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Arrangement

The papers are arranged in five series; correspondence, writings, notes, diaries and oversize material. The correspondence has been arranged in chronological sequence. A sub-series contains many enclosures, bills and receipts which had been separated from the correspondence in previous handling of the papers.

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Administrative Information

Publication Information

Washington State University Libraries Manuscripts, Archives, and Special Collections  © 2021

https://libraries.wsu.edu/masc/

Terrell Library

P.O. Box 645610

Pullman, WA, 99164-5610 USA

509-335-6691

mascref@wsu.edu

Restrictions on Access

This collection is open and available for research use.

Restrictions on Use

Copyright restrictions may apply.

Custodial History

The papers of Wilhelm N. Suksdorf, 1850-1932, of Bingen, Washington, were acquired by the Washington State University Herbarium in 1933 as a part of the bequest which willed Suksdorf's herbarium and library to the University. The herbarium added and interfiled various materials during the 1940s, principally from the papers of Fermen Pickett of Washington State University, Alice Eastwood of the California Academy of Sciences and Carleton Ball of the United States Department of Agriculture.

Acquisition Information

The papers, along with those of four other Pacific Northwest botanists, were transferred to the Washington State Library in 1975 by the Marion Ownbey Herbarium of Washington State University.

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Related Materials

Related Material

Northwest Botanical Manuscripts : an Indexed Register of the Papers, 1867-1957, of Wilhelm Nikolaus Suksdorf, William Conklin Cusick, Charles Vancouver Piper, Rolla Kent Beattie, and Harold St. John in the Washington State University Library. Washington State University; 1976.

Washington State University Botanical Papers, 1881-1973 (Cage 53)

Xerpha Mae Gaines Papers, 1948-1970 (Cage 122)

William Conklin Cusick Papers, 1906-1924 (Cage 316)

Charles Vancouver Piper Papers, 1888-1926 (Cage 317)

Rolla Kent Beattie Papers, 1899-1956 (Cage 318)

Harold St. John Papers, 1912-1957 (Cage 319)

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Names and Subjects

Personal Name(s)

Subject(s) :

• Suksdorf, Wilhelm, 1850-1932 -- Archives.
• Eastwood, Alice, 1859-1953.
• Gray, Asa, 1810-1888.
• Henderson, L. F. (Louis Fourniquet), 1853-1942.
• Howell, Thomas Jefferson, 1842-1912.
• Piper, Charles V. (Charles Vancouver), 1867-1926.
• St. John, Harold.
• Beattie, R. Kent (Rolla Kent), 1875-1960.

Subject(s)

• Botanists -- United States -- Correspondence.
• Botany -- Research -- Northwest, Pacific.
• Science
• Colleges and Universities
• Washington (State)

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Other Finding Aids

Northwest Botanical Manuscripts : an Indexed Register of the Papers, 1867-1957, of Wilhelm Nikolaus Suksdorf, William Conklin Cusick, Charles Vancouver Piper, Rolla Kent Beattie, and Harold St. John in the Washington State University Library. Washington State University; 1976.

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Bibliography

Biographical sketches of Suksdorf include: George Neville Jones, "William N. Suksdorf," Washington Historical Quarterly, 24 (1933) 128-129; Alice L. Kibbe, Afield with Plant Lovers and Collectors (Carthage, Ill.: Carthage College, 1953) 353-356; Erwin F. Lange, "Pioneer Botanists of the Pacific Northwest," Oregon Historical Quarterly, 57 (1956) 113-114; Harold St. John, "Biography of Wilhelm Nikolaus Suksdorf, 1850-1932, Pioneer Botanist of the State of Washington," Research Studies, 23 (1955) 225-282; and William A. Weber, The Botanical Collections of Wilhelm N. Suksdorf (Master’s Thesis, Washington State University, 1942), partially reprinted in Research Studies, 12 (1944) 51-122. Weber’s essay contains detailed explanations of Suksdorf’s symbols, as well as a detailed itinerary of his collecting trips.

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Detailed Description of Collection

Series 1: Correspondence
General Correspondence
			box	folder
1869-1879  90 items.			1	1
1880-1881  60 items.			1	2
1882  110 items.			1	3
1883  110 items.			1	4
1884  160 items.			1	5
1885  150 items.			2	6
1886  120 items.			2	7
1887  70 items.			2	8
1888  25 items.			2	9
1889  30 items.			2	10
1890  80 items.			2	11
1891  60 items.			2	12
1892  125 items.			2	13
1893  125 items.			3	14
1894  150 items.			3	15
1895  130 items.			3	16
1896  100 items.			3	17
1897  110 items.			3	18
1898  70 items.			4	19
1899  45 items.			4	20
1900  80 items.			4	21
1901  100 items.			4	22
1902  120 items.			4	23
1903  75 items.			4	24
1904  60 items.			4	25
1905  90 items.			4	26
1906  100 items.			5	27
1907  80 items.			5	28
1908  80 items.			5	29
1909  95 items.			5	30
1910  55 items.			5	31
1911  45 items.			5	32
1912  60 items.			5	33
1913  40 items.			5	34
1914  90 items.			5	35
1915  75 items.			5	36
1916  70 items.			6	37
1917  70 items.			6	38
1918  60 items.			6	39
1919  80 items.			6	40
1920  155 items.			6	41
1921  135 items.			6	42
1922  100 items.			7	43
1923  125 items.			7	44
1924  170 items.			7	45
1925  110 items.			7	46
1926  90 items.			8	47
1927  95 items.			8	48
1928  120 items.			8	49
1929  75 items.			8	50
1930-1932  100 items.			8	51
undated  190 items.			8	52
Supplemental Correspondence, Enclosures, Bills and Receipts
			box	folder
Correspondence of Theodor Suksdorf and Fermen Pickett, and others, relative to the estate of Wilhelm Suksdorf and acquisition of the Suksdorf herbarium 1928-1935  130 items.			8	53
Copies of correspondence with Alice Eastwood 1913-1930   20 items.			9	54
Extracts of correspondence of the several Suksdorf brothers, relative to business arrangements 1872-1917   50 items.			9	55
Enclosures, advertisements, printed materials, circulars and brochures from the correspondence of Wilhelm Suksdorf circa 1875-1930   250 items.			9	56
Bills and receipts circa 1875-1930   300 items.			9	57-59
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Series 2: Writings
			box	folder
Flora of Washington, catalogs for Fascicles 1 through 13 of plants distributions; irregular price lists 1882-1928   30 items.			10	60
Flora Washingtonensis, Phaenogamia and Pteridophyta of Washington circa 1895  1 item.			10	61
Articles, notices and reprints circa 1895-1910   10 items.			10	62
Flora of Mt. Adams, known to the Natives as Mt. Paddo, draft copy 1898  1 item.			10	63
Werdenda.  Beitrage zur Pflanzenkunde, Band I, Nos. 1-18. 1923-1931   15 items.			10	64
Werdenda, drafts, including some notes on the genus  Ansinckia circa 1925-1931   50 items.			10	65-67
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Series 3: Notes
Herbarium Catalog
			box	folder
Washington 1-1837 undated			11	68
Washington 1838-4653 undated			11	69
Washington 4654-8437 undated			11	70
Washington 8438-11495 undated			11	71
Washington 11496-13883 undated			11	72
Oregon undated			11	73
California undated			11	74
Montana undated			11	75
Idaho undated			11	76
Botanical Notes
			box	folder
Flora Von Washington circa 1887  1 notebook			12	77
Records and notes of distribution circa 1882-1910   2 Books			12	78
Catalogs of other collectors.  undated  20 items.			12	79-80
Collections notes 1904-1908   19 notebooks			13	81
Maps, keys to symbols, place names, Indian words and other such notes circa 1890-1925   50 items.			13	82
Determinations circa 1885-1920   60 items.			13	83-85
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Series 4: Diaries and Biographical Materials
			box	folder
Diaries 1867-1882  15 items.			14	86
Iowa plants and Diary 1871-1876  1 item.			14	87
Journal of Trip to California 1913  1 item.			14	88
Photographs, chiefly portraits  13 items.			14	89
Drawings and water colors circa 1860-1869  2 Books			14	90
Notes of biographers, several short biographic sketches circa 1920s-1955  10 items.			14	91
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Series 5: Oversize
			box	folder
Notes of Flora of Mt. Adams, Falcon Valley, Butterfly Lake; maps and drawings of these and other locations circa 1895-1920  35 items.			14	92
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